A Walk with Jane Austen by Lori Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

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is the one I have a hard time loving, with all her timidity and fear. She always seems to feel that she really shouldn't be in the room, that she is unworthy of notice, that she is not worth talking to. Perhaps I don't like Fanny because in some ways I share her weaknesses. I have more humor and strength, yet I manageso often to be queen of the socially awkward moment (a trait that, in some part, I come by honestly, as, at some level at least, it runs in the family, although my brother seems to have entirely escaped it).
    I think where I feel closest to Jane is in my singleness—in loving freedom and simultaneously longing for companionship. Jane wanted marriage if she could have a great marriage with real love; she was unwilling to settle for a relationship that was merely a good social move and would give her financial security. She wanted an equal, someone who would be an intellectual rival, who would respect her. She loved her life no doubt. She does not seem to have especially wanted children. But part of her hoped for the unexpectedly, unbelievably good match. Perhaps I am a bit presumptuous, but who could read her books and conclude otherwise?
    Jane Austen essentially created the chick-lit genre. We all know the formula—girl meets guy; girl falls in love with guy; guy breaks her heart; girl meets nicer, better-looking guy with more money, and they live happily ever after. Obstacles abound in Austens stories—lack of money on the part of the otherwise lovely heroine, meddling family members who pull lovers apart because they disapprove of the match— but these things are always overcome by the abundant worth of two good people who truly love each other.
    The love stories in Austen's own life echo these themes but without the “happily ever after” ending.
    Jane's first love, at twenty, was Tom Lefroy. He was a law student from Ireland, the nephew of her dear friend Anne's husband, and Anne may have introduced them. We know little about the relationship really. Much of what we know of Jane's life is from her letters, but her sister, Cassandra, burned many and mutilated more before passing them on tonieces and nephews late in her life. Perhaps Cassandra cut out the juiciest bits or, as Austen expert Deirdre Le Faye suggests, the parts that could have offended one family member or other. 2 Either way, there are gaps.
    Jane and Tom spent some time together during the course of a few weeks, over Christmas and New Year's. He was fairly serious, quiet, and very good—maybe a balance for Jane's energetic humor. They bantered over Henry Fielding's
Tom Jones
,and after a ball, Jane wrote jokingly to Cassandra of “everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together.” 3 She wrote about how the Lefroy household gives Tom a hard time about the attachment, so that when she pays a visit, he manages to hide. But he would pay her another visit, as was the custom, to thank her for partnering him at the ball, and the only fault she could really find with him was that his morning coat was “a great deal too light.” 4
    There is much debate these days about just how in love Jane was with Tom and how much this relationship influenced her writing. Some say it was just a flirtation—clearly, in Jane's letters, she is being sarcastic, they say. To me she writes as if there is some depth to her feelings in spite of trying to laugh them off. “I rather expect to receive an offer from my friend in the course of the evening,” she writes of their last meeting. “I shall refuse him, however, unless he promises to give away his white Coat.” 5 She sounds a little bit like my friends and I as well, telling stories of a romance that fell into the middle of a life that was largely without romantic interest, making much of a little thing. Yet it's easy to imagine her being teasing and sharp with Tom.
    Tom was from a good family but not wealthy. His father had been in the army. He was the oldest